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Late But Live : Johnson & BoswellJohnson and Boswell – Late But Live

By Neil Cooper in The Herald Posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007

Literary groupies take note. Fawning fan-boy interviews aren’t just the preserve of contemporary lit stars.

As Stewart Lee’s loose-knit new play puts two of the eighteenth century’s most eminent men of letters into an initially chummy Jonathan Ross-style chat show format, it’s proved beyond doubt that authors in the flesh don’t always resemble their finest works.

Fanfared by a pipes-and-drums house band, Miles Jupp’s be-wigged sycophant and Simon Munnery’s crotchety, Scot-hating old wag are a reluctant double act in which myth wins out over truth every time.

Boswell is part PR spinmeister, puffing up Johnson’s legend way beyond its reach, and part insider acolyte in the mould of Lester Bangs without the excesses. Johnson, in contrast, performs the show-stopping equivalent of Emu attacking Parky, David Blane’s silent treatment to Eamonn Holmes, or Meg Ryan’s affronted one-word replies, again to Michael Parkinson.

It’s Mrs Merton with Bernard Manning, and Alan Partridge every time he opens his mouth. Johnson is a maverick wild card who simply won’t play ball. He has a book to plug, but hang it if he’s going to state the obvious.

He’d much rather goad all about him with a scurrilous attack on Scotland old and new. If this country is possessed with the cultural confidence it so often claims, none of this will offend in the slightest outside of a few shortbread parochialists mourning the Celtic twilight.

Before long it’s a fully-fledged historical variety show, involving duelling bagpipes and mouth organ, and a near Tiswas-style re-enactment of the pair’s Highland fling.

Lee and his stand-up chums, both of whom rise to the occasion with aplomb, have created a pop-cultural hybrid that sticks its neck to kick against the pricks and protectors of his subjects’ legacy.

Of course, as with any satire, J and B can’t help but bite the hand that feeds him from the inside. Lee can slag off the Fringe and the “new writing powerhouse” that houses his wares as much as he likes, but, by his quite deliberate awkward-squad stance, he remains a vital component of what makes both tick. Which makes for some very naughty and utterly knowing fun indeed.

Written by Neil Cooper in The Herald on 11th August 2007. Filed Under: Johnson & Boswell, Late But Live, Reviews
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